SOUTH OF CLINTON

Deepwater

    2013, opening day deer rifle season I had tracked a doe that finally caught scent of me.  She threw that fluffy white flag up and bounded into the timber just as I jerked my rifle to my face to shoot. 

    Shielded from view I sat for two hours on a huge flat oak stump watching the tree line for the doe to come back out to feed. I was very comfortable in my short sleeves, happy to feel the light breeze in my hair and listen to the bluejays "caw caw" in the locust tree behind me. I raised my binoculars trying to focus on a Red-tail hawk in flight's screech just before it swooped to the ground to snatch a mouse out of the tall grass. 

The calm of the afternoon enveloped me; that solitude every hunter's dream as I watched the clouds float across the sky with childlike wonder.  My husband joined me at the stump.

Foxtail with an amber glow under the late afternoon sun - the soybean field bordered the trees.

Darkness at Sunset

    By last light Ed's 30.06 pierced the quiet dusk with the shot as the doe trotted into the soybeans, eager to feed. Typical for deer as the photo below shows, barely enough light to see through the scope, she emerged within rifle range. Our patience paid off.  Within minutes we hauled the doe to the Jeep and headed home, tired and relieved.